Two hills close in a limestone basin in western Herzegovina, and the village on the floor between them takes its name from the fact: Međugorje, the place between the mountains. Križevac is the higher of the two, a bare grey cone with a concrete cross on the summit that can be seen from the whole valley. Podbrdo is the lower and the nearer, a slope of thorn scrub and loose stone above the hamlet of Bijakovići, with vines below it. Mostar lies some thirty kilometres to the north-east; the Croatian border is half an hour away west.
On 24 June 1981 six young people of the parish came down off Podbrdo saying that they had seen the Virgin Mary on the slope. They are named in every account of the shrine — Ivanka Ivanković-Elez, Mirjana Dragičević-Soldo, Vicka Ivanković-Mijatović, Ivan Dragičević, Marija Pavlović-Lunetti and Jakov Čolo. Some of them report daily apparitions in the decades since, and the title they give her, Queen of Peace, is the one the parish has taken for its own.
The Church has made no ruling on what happened on that slope. What it has settled is what pilgrims may do about it: in September 2024 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Nihil Obstat for the devotion connected with Medjugorje, authorising pilgrimages and public worship, and declaring nothing at all about the supernatural character of the apparitions. Where that pilgrimage lands is the parish church at the foot of the hill — St James the Greater, patron of pilgrims — white, plain, twin-towered, with an open-air altar behind it and a line of confessionals under the trees where the languages posted above the doors run past thirty in summer.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The parish of St James the Greater was cut out of the Herzegovinian hills at the end of the nineteenth century, and Franciscan friars of the Province of Bosna Srebrena have served it since. They built the present church on the flat ground below Podbrdo, plain and white, with its square in front of it and the two hills behind.
On 24 June 1981 six young people of the parish reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them on Podbrdo, above Bijakovići. The parish priest of the time, Fr Jozo Zovko, did not believe them; he came to accept their account, and the parish tells that turn as part of its own story. Pilgrims began arriving within months, and the village shaped itself around them — family houses taking in guests, an outdoor altar behind the church, a confessional park under the pines.
The judgment of the Church came in stages, and it is worth keeping the stages apart. A commission under Cardinal Camillo Ruini, appointed by Benedict XVI, worked from 2010 to 2014: thirteen of its fifteen members judged the first seven days of apparitions, 24 to 30 June 1981, to be of supernatural origin, and a majority were doubtful about everything reported after that. The commission's recommendation was never adopted as a formal ruling. The Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, for its part, held for decades under Bishops Pavao Žanić and Ratko Perić that nothing supernatural had been established here.
The question changed shape in September 2024. Under norms Pope Francis had issued that May for discerning alleged apparitions, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith granted Medjugorje a Nihil Obstat — the highest approval it gives without settling whether a phenomenon is supernatural. The note credits the place with abundant spiritual fruits: conversions, a return to confession and the Eucharist, vocations to the priesthood, to religious life and to marriage. It authorises pilgrimage and public devotion. It makes no declaration on the supernatural character of the apparitions, and it advises pilgrims that a journey here is an encounter with Christ in the Word, the Eucharist and Eucharistic adoration rather than an appointment with the visionaries. Bishop Petar Palić of Mostar-Duvno issued his own nihil obstat alongside it, on the same terms.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Medjugorje
St James' Church
Crkva svetog Jakova
The parish church is white and plain, twin towers over a single long nave, standing on the square called Gospin trg, Our Lady's Square. The building holds a fraction of what arrives, so the parish put the rest of the liturgy outdoors: behind the church an altar under a canopy faces a semicircle of benches that seats several thousand in the open air, with a bank of confessionals along one side and pines over the whole of it. A small chapel beside the church is kept for silent adoration. The daily order the parish keeps here — Rosary, Mass, adoration, prayer for the sick, confession in language after language — is the shrine's working heart, and it runs through winter as well as through the summer crowds.
Apparition Hill
Podbrdo
The slope above Bijakovići where the first apparition was reported. There is no gate and no closing hour. A path leaves the hamlet and climbs over loose limestone, half an hour of it for most people, with bronze reliefs of the mysteries of the Rosary by the Italian sculptor Carmelo Puzzolo set along the way and a white marble statue of the Queen of Peace at the top. Many climb barefoot; the stone is sharp and pilgrims who do it once tend to remember the descent. The parish comes up to pray the Rosary on the hill on Sundays.
Cross Mountain
Križevac
The parish raised a concrete cross eight and a half metres tall on the summit in 1933, to mark nineteen hundred years since the Crucifixion. The climb takes three-quarters of an hour to an hour on rough ground, and pilgrims make it praying the Stations of the Cross, which are set at intervals along the path. The parish walks the Way of the Cross up here on Fridays, and celebrates Mass at the summit cross for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September.
Blue Cross
Plavi Križ
An iron cross painted blue at the foot of Podbrdo, a short way off the main path, marking the head of the climb. Groups gather at it before going up.
Risen Christ Statue
Kip Krista Uskrsloga
A bronze figure of the risen Christ on open ground about 290 metres west of the parish church, on the way towards Križevac. The arms are spread, the head is turned aside, and the ground around it is walkable day and night.
Mother's Village
Majčino Selo
Fr Slavko Barbarić founded this place at Bijakovići in 1993 for children orphaned by the war, and it grew into a village of family houses with a preschool and social welfare work of its own. Pilgrims are received to see what the shrine does with what it is given.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Anniversary of the First Apparition — June 25
The parish keeps the anniversary as a solemnity and prepares for it with a nine-day novena to the Queen of Peace from June 15, the Rosary prayed each afternoon on Podbrdo by parishioners from one hamlet after another — Miletina, Vionice, Bijakovići — and by members of the Franciscan secular order. On the eve, June 24, the Peace Walk (Hodnja mira) sets out at first light from the Franciscan monastery at Humac and reaches St James' Church in the course of the morning. These two days fill the village and its car parks to the edges.
Saint James the Apostle — July 25
The patronal feast of the parish church. James the Greater is the patron of pilgrims, and the parish keeps his day as its own.
Youth Festival — August 1–6
Mladifest, six days of prayer, catechesis, Mass and adoration for young people from across the world, kept every year since 1989. It opens on the first evening with the Rosary, an opening Mass and adoration; Sunday Mass is celebrated in language groups, and a procession with the statue of Our Lady goes through the parish in the evening. The dates are set around August 5, which the visionaries keep as the Virgin's birthday.
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary — August 15
Velika Gospa, the Great Lady. The Assumption is the great Marian solemnity of the Croatian calendar, and the parish celebrates it at the church and the outdoor altar.
Exaltation of the Holy Cross — September 14
Mass is celebrated at the concrete cross on the summit of Križevac, the parish walking up for it. Corpus Christi and Palm Sunday, both moveable, are also kept with processions — Corpus Christi through the parish after the evening Mass, Palm Sunday from the grounds of the old church to the new one.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Hotel Wojtyla (hotel) — Named for Karol Wojtyła, Pope St John Paul II. A hundred metres from St James' Church and thirty from the John Paul II Hall used for prayer sessions, which makes it the shortest walk to the evening programme in the village. Family-run, thirty rooms and two apartments, one room adapted for guests with disabilities, and a restaurant serving Herzegovinian cooking. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Hotel Grace (hotel) — On the main road through the village, 146 metres from the church, with the highest location rating among the larger Medjugorje hotels. Free parking and an airport shuttle by arrangement. Reserve this hotel
Hotel Herceg ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — A four-star house on Kardinala Stepinca, 570 metres from the church: the full-service option, modern, with private parking and a paid shuttle to Mostar Airport. Two supermarkets and a chemist are next door, which matters more than it sounds to a group staying a week. Reserve this hotel
Boutique Hotel Sulic (boutique hotel) — On Vukovarska, about four hundred metres from St James' Church — a five-minute walk — with its own restaurant. Smaller than the three above and quieter for it. Reserve this hotel
Accommodation available to book near Medjugorje. Pilgrim houses and religious guesthouses are listed above — many take bookings directly and do not appear on booking sites.
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Mostar Airport (OMO) is the nearest, 25 to 30 kilometres away, thirty to forty-five minutes by road, but its traffic is seasonal and mostly from Italy, and no scheduled bus meets the flights — pilgrims book a transfer or take a taxi. Split Airport (SPU) in Croatia, about 140 kilometres and two to three hours away, is the year-round gateway most groups from western Europe and North America use. Dubrovnik Airport (DBV) is a second Croatian option, reported at 130 to 150 kilometres depending on the route, around two and a half hours. Sarajevo Airport (SJJ) carries eastern European and Gulf connections and is roughly two and a half hours by road, with no direct bus.
By Bus: Globtour Medjugorjie runs the Mostar–Medjugorje route, line 138, about 30 kilometres in 45 to 50 minutes with several departures a day each way; this is the most frequent scheduled service reaching the shrine. Nomago runs a coach from Split's main bus station — not the airport — a few times a week, which suits a pilgrim already in Split rather than an arrival off a plane. From Sarajevo the bus journey needs a change at Mostar.
By Car: From the Croatian coast the road crosses into Bosnia and Herzegovina at Bijača, Gabela Polje or Zvirići, depending on where the drive starts. From Mostar the M17/M6 corridor runs south-west, about 30 kilometres.
On Foot: The Camino Dubrovnik ends at the door of St James' Church — see Pilgrim Routes below.
Local Transport: There is no bus network inside the village; the church sits at the centre and every other site is reached on foot or by a short taxi hop. Parking near the church runs on a paid municipal zone system, one zone along the road from the entrance bridge up to the church and a cheaper one on the streets off Ivana Pavla II. Free open-air lots sit behind the church itself and at the foot of both hills. On June 24 and 25 and on August 5 these fill early; arriving before eight in the morning saves a long walk in.
📚 Further Reading
Wayne Weible. Medjugorje: The Message — The book that carried Medjugorje into English-speaking parishes, by the journalist who became its best-known chronicler in English. Concentrates on the messages the visionaries report.
Wayne Weible. Medjugorje: THE LAST APPARITION—How It Will Change the World — A journalist's account of the apparitions and of how the devotion spread out of one Herzegovinian parish. Written from inside the movement, and useful for understanding the pilgrims a visitor will be standing among.
🎥 Recommended Videos
Poslušajte dio propovijedi iz Međugorja — A minute of a homily filmed at the shrine, posted by Radio MIR Međugorje, the parish's own station. In Croatian.
What Are the Medjugorje Marian Apparitions? — EWTN News In Depth, two minutes, on what the visionaries report and where the Church stands on it.
Medjugorje: The Spiritual Heart of Bosnia & Herzegovina — A nine-minute walk through the village and its sites, made for pilgrims planning a first visit.
🔗 Useful Links
Parish of St James, Medjugorje — The parish's own site in English: the shrine, the friars, the messages and the practical pages.
Prayer programme — The daily order of Rosary, Mass, confession, adoration and the Way of the Cross, given separately for summer and winter.
Important dates — The parish calendar of feasts, processions and pilgrimage days.
"The Queen of Peace" — Note of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — The 2024 note that authorised pilgrimage and public devotion, in full.
🥾 Pilgrim Routes
Camino Dubrovnik — A waymarked route of about 145 kilometres in seven stages, from the church of St James in Dubrovnik to the church of St James in Medjugorje: three and a half days through Croatia and three and a half through Bosnia and Herzegovina. It belongs to the European Federation of the Saint James Ways, the wider network of the Camino de Santiago, and its official pages carry the stages and the waymarking — caminodubrovnik.eu.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Sinj (101 km) — The miraculous painting of Gospa Sinjska in a Franciscan basilica below the fortress hill, crowned in gold after the siege of 1715.
Šibenik (157 km) — The stone Cathedral of St James on the Adriatic coast, and the shrine of St Nikola Tavelić.
Monte Sant'Angelo (217 km) — The cave sanctuary of St Michael the Archangel on the Gargano promontory, across the Adriatic by sea rather than by road.
San Giovanni Rotondo (231 km) — The friary and tomb of St Pio of Pietrelcina, also on the Gargano and also across the water.
Bari (239 km) — The basilica holding the relics of St Nicholas, on the Italian side of the Adriatic.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"pilgrimages are not made to meet with alleged visionaries but to have an encounter with Mary, the Queen of Peace"
